About me

After losing the initial 10kg back in August, I’ve really struggled with eating well and a lot of nutritionally poor food items have found their way back into my diet. I think reaching a goal, which was the first weight loss goal I’ve managed to reach in my lifetime, really messed with my head and I felt like I deserved to ‘treat’ myself which led to an inevitable slide in food choices.

With this in mind, the Starting Strength camps arrived at the perfect time, giving me the kick up the arse that I needed to get back on track. My lifts are a fair bit weaker than they used to be, partly due to the weight loss and mostly due to work. I don’t want to be this weak again; shame is a great motivator.

I’ve upped my hours in my day job to 4.5 days per week, mainly because I would like to get on the housing ladder at some point in my life, and so it will be easy for me let my training and nutrition go even slacker. I’ve made the decision that I’m better than that. It’s really not all that hard to prep some simple and nutritious meals for work and to get off the couch and actually go to the gym. I’m single and childless, I have no excuses. If Jordan and Tom come back next year, I want them to see a better version of me.

So that’s the camps’ influence on me, committing to dropping a final 9kg and getting my strength levels back to where they were at my peak – 127.5kg squat, 80kg bench and 145kg deadlift.

As for my clients’ training, it will largely remain the same. There are some slight technique adjustments that need to be made, and I really ought to teach the powerclean more, but by and large I am doing that right – linear progression and a simple stable of compound exercises are all a novice needs to progress.

Darkside is now 5 months old, I am so proud of all of my lifters, whether they are training for health or competition, and I can’t wait to see what 2015 will bring!

Happy New Year!

Whilst the concept of women training with weights is gradually starting to become normalised within mainstream media and culture, it is mostly polarized into two extremes. Fitspo, with its sexy and tanned models with breast implants, posing in a sexually suggestive manner, or hardcore powerlifting and bodybuilding advocates. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of information out there for people who are just, dare I say it, ‘normal,’ those who have never really considered weight training and simply want to enjoy good health.

Neither of the above representations are particularly appealing to someone just starting out, they certainly weren’t for me. The former is often damaging and holds the implication that a woman’s worth lies within her attractiveness to the male viewer and that they have failed if they cannot achieve the unattainable physical or training ideals portrayed (though there are some decent examples of fitspo, occasionally). The latter can be intimidating and imply an end point (competing) that the beginning lifter may not foresee for themselves.

It is with this in mind that when I started to seriously think about what Darkside could be, its ethos and purpose, I knew that it had to appeal to those who didn’t really think that weights were for them. Women face enough barriers, in life as well as in the gym.

Darkside’s purpose is to dispel some of the long-term myths surrounding women and weight training and to encourage anyone and everyone to give it a go. Strength is too important for a woman’s health, physically and psychologically, to ignore. So, I shall sign off with what is essentially my mission statement:

Darkside Training – Changing Perceptions of Femininity, Masculinity and Health.

Darkside Training

Women's Community of Strength

New Year’s Eve

Why I Started Darkside

For details of our next seminars and how to join, message me on Facebook, shantelle.darkside@gmail.com or phone 07717 202065